Posts Tagged ‘Hannity & Colmes’

“Teabagger” rift. Fox News’ forlorn liberal Alan Colmes seemed genuinely miffed at “TV’s Andy Levy” this morning on Red Eye. During the “Post-Game Wrap-Up,” Andy, as if alerted, asked, “Hey, Alan, did you have a question for me?”: The former Hannity & Colmes co-host replied, “Yeah, I wanted to know why you stopped following me on Twitter.” As both RE panelists Bill Shulz and Juliet Huddy in surprise exclaimed, “Oh,” Andy retorted, “Uh, ’cause you think the word ‘teabagger’ is really, really funny. And, I think it’s really, really stupid.”

In response, Alan, stuttering, facetiously asserted, “I didn’t, uh, you know what, I hate to be on, I’m glad that we are on a show that never does stupid jokes.” As guest host F&F’s Brian Kilmeade roared in laughter in the background (as if to lighten the moment), Andy sternly riposted, “It’s not a question of stupid jokes. You know it’s offensive to people, and you keep using it.”

Defensively, Alan answered, “They’re the ones who started using it themselves, not knowing what it meant. They’re the ones who started using that word.” Dismissively, Andy rejoined, “Oh, stop it, Alan. Please. Give me a break!” Having the final word, Andy concluded, “Back to you, Brian!”

Gone: without a Trace? Not quite. As the end of the program today, co-anchor Trace Gallagher announced, “As you may have heard, this is the last day of the Live Desk….Megyn Kelly’s new show, America Live, will be starting on Monday.” Without his co-host Martha MacCallum (who was already with her new partner, Bill Hemmer, on America’s Newsroom), Trace seemed somewhat lost. Sounding more than a mite melancholy, he added, “And, of course, you can’t get rid of me. I’ll be along for big stories and breaking news. It has been a great time.”

When the author heard Trace’s farewell, he thought of another anchor who appeared to exit his show under similar circumstances, i.e., Alan Colmes. When Alan left the popular Hannity & Colmes apparently to allow Sean Hannity to have his eponymous show Hannity in the same time slot, Alan was bound for unnamed future projects: thereafter, Alan has made guest appearances on various FNC shows and has had a recurring role on the O’Reilly Factor as a debate opponent of his conservative sister-in-law Monica Crowley. If Trace is fortunate, maybe, he will find a similar position, and, possibly, even be paired regularly in some capacity with his recently frequent Live Desk guest co-host, Juliet Huddy.

Did Alan Colmes leave Hannity & Colmes with his ego fully intact? His performance on Fox & Friends Weekend in his interview with co-anchor Dave Briggs might call that into question. In a quite contentious segment on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s future, Colmes took issue sharply with Briggs’ assertions that the Speaker was losing credibility with her evolving tale of her C.I.A. waterboard briefing, that either C.I.A. chief Leon Panetta or Speaker Pelosi was lying, etc. Nothing necessarily out of the ordinary.

However, when Briggs asserted that Colmes was not answering his query as to whether Pelosi should have investigated whether the waterboarding was actually occurring if she did not already know, Colmes snapped. Taking obvious offense to a grinning Briggs with arms crossed, Colmes severely and sonorous retorted, “Stop that! Don’t tell me about answering your question. I’m answering your question. Don’t say that to me!”

After laughing in response, Briggs began to realize that he had struck a rather raw nerve. Taken aback, he responded, “Okay” to a chafed Colmes. Even though Briggs then seemed to give him his space and a bit more deference, he continued to ask the tough questions on President Obama’s decisions to not release detainee photographs and to reauthorize military commissions.

Perhaps, Colmes’ departure from H&C was not fully his choice after all.

Hannity & Colmes departing co-host Alan Colmes did not cotton to Brian Kilmeade’s flippant familiarity today. In Fox & Friends’ final segment with Colmes and his wife Jocelyn Crowley (author of Defiant Dads), co-host Brian Kilmeade asked, “Al, what are you are going to be doing: do we know?” Colmes snapped, “Al-[l]an. I don’t go by that nickname!”

Trying to get back on track, Colmes explained that he would continue his radio show and develop a Fox weekend program. Then he ribbed Brian, stating that he was going to be Doocy’s co-host on Fox & Friends. Brian riposted, “I definitely like your wife better!”

FNC’s Sean Hannity announced to his “Hannity & Colmes” audience that the show will return as “Hannity” on January 12, 2009. The conservative commentator said that he and his liberal co-host had had a good run and that he had few disagreements off the set. He kiddingly accused his co-host Alan Colmes of “abandoning me.” Colmes response was generally muted and mentioned his unnamed FNC projects in the works.

About three weeks ago, too, when Alan Colmes announced that he would be leaving H&C after twelve successful seasons, Hannity responded that Colmes was abandoning him. Each time that he has said it, it appeared that Colmes didn’t directly respond as if Hannity did protest too much. Even though Colmes has indicated that he initiated the change with Bill Shine, FNC’s SVP of programming, one can’t help wonder if Hannity gave him a little push.

With Hannity’s new $100 million radio contract with ABC Radio Networks and Premiere Radio Networks and recent lucrative four-year renwal with FNC, one may wonder if Hannity is readying to rival Rush and O’Reilly instead of playing second banana.

An odd farewell from and to Alan Colmes, the liberal counterpart to Sean Hannity on FNC’s popular political polemics program, Hannity & Colmes. During the show, Alan mentioned with little fanfare that he had an announcement to make and Sean seemed to treat it rather lightly: However, in the final segment, Alan announced that he would be leaving the show after twelve years to continue his radio program (“Alan Colmes Show”), contribute to FNC, and to, perhaps, do occasional specials for FNC. He and Sean affirmed their on-screen, off-screen long-time friendship and traded pleasantries. And then the usual segue to Greta and it was over.

According to TVDecoder, Alan will leave at the end of the year. Fox News may be slowly learning from its mistakes. Its past pathetic partings to Fox & Friends’ E.D. Hill and F&FW’s Kiran Chetry, Page Hopkins, Kelly Wright, Greg Kelly, and Ainsley Earhardt left a sour taste in its faithful fans’ mouths. Hopefully, when he leaves at the end of the year, they will give him a respectful send-off.

Adieu, Alan. You have proved yourself a vociferous and vigorous adversary to Sean. And you do so without being mean spirited. Bravo!

For the third straight day FNC’s Fox & Friends has covered the Miley Cyrus, a/k/a Hannah Montana, Vanity Fair brouhaha. As Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson have bemoaned the controversial pics and Brian Kilmeade has defended the fifteen-year-old sensation, F&F has run the racy pics and photo shoot vid ad infinitum. One is reminded of Bill O’Reilly’s rants and ravings about the degeneracy of pop culture while running endless loops of the risque antics of springbreakers on FNC’s O’Reilly Factor. Or even straight-laced Sean Hannity’s sermonizing as he runs similar clips on Hannity & Colmes.

Lately Bill O’Reilly, O’Reilly Factor’s host and Fox New’s night-time king, seems to be on an anti-Obama tear. He is constantly bringing up Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments and talking about a white backlash. E.g., his 04/07/08 show led with this purported white backlash. In his interview with Geraldine Ferraro on that program, he treated her with kid gloves and did not ask her if her Obama comment were a part of the Clinton campaign that seems to be making race an issue. Later, when he questioned the Chicago Tribune’s syndicated columnist Clarence Page, an African-American, thrice, he asked, “Do you feel sorry for her (Ferraro)?” O’Reilly and his fellow FNC star and co-host of the Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity, seem to be working in tandem to torpedo Barack Obama’s candidacy in the primary season, and, if that fails, in the general election. Clintonian triangulaton may yet be at work.